Chapter 1
Alexander
Amythicaldragonthatshouldn’t exist dropped my applicant three stories, shattering her legs.
I was already up and running.
My bare feet pounded through the tunnels beneath my coliseum, and my breath scraped my ribs raw. The gasps and scattered applause of the confused crowd still thundered overhead. The test to join my family shouldn’t have created something capable of causing physical harm. But it had, and now her magic hummed beneath my skin, weaving memories into my mind that weren’t my own.
She wasn’t supposed to be here. And if she was dying, I knew what it would cost to save her.
I rushed through the dark arches, exhaustion weighing heavily on my shoulders. For three relentless days, I alone had powered the trials; every breath was a battle threatening to shatter me.
Despite everything, my mental magic sang in my blood; it was so rare I allowed myself to use it.
I virtually flew into the small cellar we used as a medic room. Bright light assaulted my eyes, forcing me to slow and squint. On the medical bed, a salvaged relic from centuries past, lay a woman swaddled in filthy, rotting layers. Deep red hair spilled across our cream sheet.
The love of my life stood a foot from the bed with his hand resting on his sword hilt. His dark skin and long, plum-purple hair, currently in a ponytail, were opposite my short baby blue mane and typical pale, Scottish complexion. For once, I was the shirtless one in our duo, but I couldn’t take the time to appreciate the role reversal.
My partner in all things, and yet this… this was my decision.
I stepped closer. Her eyelids fluttered, revealing a dull green gaze that froze my heart. In twenty-eight years, I’d never seen eyes without the glow of magic.
“Are you real?” she croaked.
I wanted to ask her the same, but the pain in her voice cut off my banter. “Yes.”
I peeled back the layers hiding her. The stench of rot, sweat, and blood burned my nose. Bug bites and infected cuts marred her skin under a black synthetic bra and a crude plastic suit. Plastic. A material the world hadn’t made in over a century.
I trembled and once again forced my questions down.
Her legs were swelling fast, the left one bent at impossible angles. She seized violently, and I clenched my jaw so hard it hurt.
I could save her. But to do it, I’d have to tether her to me.
“You can’t,” my lover warned, standing just behind me.
But I could. I had to.
“Her raw power could repel an army from my walls,” I said.
My lover grunted.
“The world’s broken,” I continued, needing to hear my rationale out loud. “We made this family to fix what part of it we could, for her,and every lost soul needing a home. Saving her life is the right thing to do.”
My lover grunted again. He’d already expressed his opinion. He wouldn’t do it again.
Foam spilled from her mouth. My pulse hammered in my ears.
My gaze locked onto the man who was the center of my world. The wordtetherhovered between us, a fault line ready to break. We both understood it. The connection would bond this stranger and me together for life, something my lover and I could never have.
“I want…”
Her magic tugged at my soul.
“I need to understand. Her eyes are dull, like humans of the past.” I swallowed. “Her magic calls to mine in a way nothing ever has before.”
I turned to my lover once more, desperate for him to understand.
